Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/159

 Charles Martel and Pippin 1 23 when confirmed by the most solemn oath, how the Lombards have desolated all our lands and committed many murders. And now thou knowest, O most excellent son and spiritual kinsman, thou knowest what we would say with many tears and much sorrow of heart. The very first of January all the army of this same Aistulf, king of the Lombards, gathered from the confines of Tuscany, against the city of Rome, and encamped close to the gate of the blessed apostle Peter and the gate of St. Pancratius and the Ostian gate. Then Aistulf himself joined his army, with further reinforcements, and pitched his tents beside the Salarian gate and other gates. And he drew up his army and said to us Romans : " Open to me the Salarian gate that I may enter the city ; and deliver your pontiff into my hands. Then I will have mercy upon you. If you do not these things, I will destroy your walls, and put you to the sword. And I will see who can deliver you out of my hands." . . . They have wasted with fire and sword, far and wide, all the lands outside the city, and have burned the churches of God, and have cast the most holy images of the saints into the fire, and destroyed them. And they have put that holy treasure, the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, into their own polluted vessels and, sated with abundance of meat, they ate this blessed treasure. The altar cloths and other ornaments of the churches of God oh, too infamous to tell! they bore away and used for their own purposes. The monks, servants of God, who dwelt in mountains for the praise of God, they beat with many blows, and many of them they cut to pieces. And they seized nuns and recluses dedicated from their earliest years to the cloister; and sub- jected them to the most cruel abuses, so that some of them were seen to perish. They have cut off vines well-nigh to the roots, and have altogether destroyed the harvests. There is no chance of safety for the household of our holy church, nor for any one indeed who remains in the city of Rome. . . . Now for five and fifty days they have besieged and sur- rounded on every side this afflicted city of Rome ; and this